u/Sorry-Concert5789

Hi I am 19F, I’ve been dealing with a very fast heart rate recently, I’ve also been having very severe anxiety so I’m sure that adds to the fact that my heart races, but please put that to the side and hear me out. Even when I walk 2 mile speed on the treadmill, my heart rate skyrockets, it went to almost 200 bpm the other day from walking uphill and up two short flights of stairs. I have no severe symptoms when I move around besides a little shortness of breath and my high bpm. I was prescribed propranolol for my anxiety a few months ago and I’ve decided it’s time to give it a try but I’m having some worries about taking it. I’ve been cleared through ekgs and a heart monitor that there’s nothing structurally wrong with my heart. I had an echo as well but never got the results back from my dr so I have no idea what was found (i’m assuming all was clear). but basically i’m just worried to try propranolol, i don’t want to worsen my symptoms or have any sort of extreme reaction because something could possibly be wrong with my heart. any advice?

Let me preface this by saying I do have a hefty amount of mental health issues, OCD, GAD, possible panic disorder.

So in January, I had what i THINK is a panic attack while driving, felt really faint, fast heart rate, etc, I still don’t know if it was a panic attack or not, but I lean towards the fact that it was considering I’ve had similar episodes now when leaving the house or driving. My heart rate will get up really high from basically nothing and it can come out of nowhere.

In February I saw a family friend cardiologist, got an EKG, ECG, and a holter monitor overnight, for some reasons I never got to see all the results but I was cleared as all good.

Since then I’ve had tachycardia constantly, especially when I work out or have any movement. I recently got an apple watch as I am starting to exercise more for losing weight and because of this I can view my heart rate when simply walking. It went up to 195 last week during exercise, which really scared me. I don’t like to check my heart rate as it gives me anxiety but I’ve viewed it today and I’ve seen the past week, my heart rate been in the range of 62-196. I went to a concert this past weekend and my heart rate barely went under 130 during the 2 hours I was there.

I am scared to work out as it always ends up in the 130-160 range, my sleep heart rate shows an average in the 80s and has gone over 113 at one point. I went to my primary doctor today to hopefully get a cardiology referral, but it will be almost an entire month until I can get a holter monitor and seen, which gives me more anxiety waiting for that.

I have no family history of cardiac issues or sudden cardiac death, I smoke weed from time to time to manage anxiety, and I don’t consume any caffeine.

I want to know of anyones experience with tachycardia and diagnoses, if this could just be pretty benign or if I have anything to worry about. Obviously my mental issues make the whole process feel 10x worse but I am now concerned with how this will affect my fitness journey or if having my heart race so fast for several hours will cause any serious complications.

hi for context i am 19F, i went on the opill back in april because i had terrible crippling anxiety that would start when i would get my period. that combined with my cramps just made me life hell, i couldn’t go to work/school and function normally. so i ended up going to my school doctor for birth control and they gave me the o pill to try out. i was only on it for ten days but i had cramping, anxiety, and just this extreme appetite. i ended up stopping after 10 days and decided to see my primary care doctor in the summer instead since i was having trouble coping with the side effects.

flash forward to now and im still having the extreme appetite. i am so so hungry all the time, it’s really odd, i’ve gained almost 15 pounds since now and starting the pill. i was previously underweight and struggled to gain weight a lot. i also still haven’t got my period since coming off the pill and haven’t had any menstrual symptoms either. does anyone have any similar experiences like this? i’m a little under educated in birth control and how long the effects last but i’m wondering if this is still side effects from the pill or could possibly be something else, just looking for any sort of advice!

tldr: i went on birth control for 10 days and im still feeling side effects two months later, is this possible/normal?

Hi this is my first time talking about this online so a little nervous. I am 19F, I’m in college, been out for the summer for about a month. Since January I’ve been having the worst year imaginable, I started out getting a horrible anxiety attack while completing an hour long drive to hang out with a friend. It felt like I was about to pass out while driving on the road. Since then I’ve had panic attacks nearly every week. It first started with my heart randomly racing out of nowhere when I was in bed, then I felt faint again, and finally I was able to take an anxiety pill that I previously had for flying on a plane.

Then I went back to school after winter break and it only got worse. I was eating breakfast before a shift at work and I suddenly got so nauseous I couldn’t finish and then when I got to work, I was stuck in panic mode for the first hour I was there. I ended up going back to my dorm room out of fear I was going to faint again. I ended up going to urgent care twice that week, they told me orthostatic hypotension (due to hydration, which was weird since I am pretty particular about hydration due to my OCD), then I went back and got IV fluids just to, in my mind, eliminate the hypotension. The next day I walked to my class and I still felt that lingering faint feeling. My parents came to drop food off for me a few weeks later and my symptoms of this faint, racing heartbeat, hot flashes, all these awful feelings had persisted for weeks. I could hardly leave my dorm room, I was calling off work a lot. I ended up breaking down in front of my parents in the car. I felt so trapped.

I went home for a week, went to see my doctor and a thyroid specialisy to get checked out. I even saw a cardiologist, they did ekg, ecg, had me wear a hotter monitor overnight. But nothing ever was found through doctors visits and blood tests. I went back to school and was able to stick it out for about two more months (though I did go through an odd period of vomiting from seemingly nothing, worsening my ocd and giving me a new fear of throwing up). I went home for spring break and that was like the tipping point for me. The anxiety came back, not terrible. I was able to drive (something I hadn’t been able to do since my panic attacks in January) and drove myself back to school and even my friend to the movies. However, after the movie, I got this horrible panic attack while we were at a restaurant and we had to leave back to school because I seriously thought I would faint.

My anxiety become unbearable after that. A bit TMI, but I did think the anxiety came from my menstrual cycle, because well I was on it when it happened. So I went to my schools doctor for birth control pills, hoping it would fix my awful anxiety and symptoms. I took it for ten days and it honestly just made my life harder so I stopped. But besides that I was having panic attacks every. day. I was crying before my classes, I was running out of them to check my blood pressure, I was constantly calling my mom and sobbing to her. I could only exist in my dorm and most of the time at work. That was it. I ended up going to my school psychiatrist and getting prescribed ativan and zoloft. I never took the zoloft, more on that in a second. But I took the ativan, almost every week, not every day, but it was the end of the school year, I had tests and important events I couldn’t miss out due to my anxiety.

I finally came home in may and I kind of hoped my anxiety would fix itself now that I’m home. My therapist told me it sounded a lot like a panic disorder when I opened up about it to her in our first session back. Now that I’m home, I barely ever leave, the heat makes my anxiety sooo unbearable. I can’t drive. I’m constantly finding way to manage my anxiety for a few hours so I can go out, like using CBD oil & vagus nerve stimulants to calm myself down. I feel like a shell of my former self, I used to love going out and driving, hanging with my friends.

I apologize for this being so long, but now here we are at the present. I’m supposed to move back into school in August. I am still where I’m at in may. My OCD does not help my panic disorder/anxiety at all. In fact, today has been particularly bad for me, this sounds silly but I saw a TikTok today about a young girl who passed due to SADS, and it kind of sent me on a spiral. Yes I’ve had tachycardia this year that has lined up as I’ve experienced my anxiety/panic symptoms. But I basically went on this rabbit hole, looking at my medical records and googling all this stuff related to heart issues and now Im so scared of like dying in my sleep, blah blah blah Im probably just anxious but of course it launched a panic attack for me again. I’m so sick of living like this, I am seriously at my wits end and I am so seriously considering the zoloft.

(I’m almost finished I promise) But anyways why haven’t I taken the zoloft? Yes, I am anxious about it. I’m worried about the sweating (I have horrible anxiety related to heat due to having heat exhaustion before), the rare side effects (which yes i know know they are so rare but i’m still very scared), and just what if it doesn’t work for me and i end up needing to go on something else. Ive also become very sensitive about my weight as I’ve recently gained a lot of weight (possibly due to my anxiety? I’m unsure but anytime I feel hungry it launches me into a panic attack so I’ve been eating feverishly lately) so I think I’m just feeling insecure and worried if I gain weight on the medication it will just fuel that insecurity.

I just want to hear other people’s experiences, if anyones felt anything similar to me, if youve gone on zoloft, literally anything. I just don’t want to feel alone because thats all I feel lately, I feel terrible constantly pushing this into my family and friends who just want me to get better. I want so badly to be better.